Hurricane Ike

Roughly an hour before this image was captured at 1:50 p.m. Central Daylight Time on September 10, 2008, Ike was a Category 2 hurricane according to the National Hurricane Center. Ike was a large storm, and at the time of this image it was affecting three nations: Cuba, the United States, and Mexico.
Ike was a Category 4 storm before its passage over Cuba stripped it of some of its power. It re-emerged in the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 1 storm and re-strengthened. As of September 11, forecasters were warning that Ike might reach Category 3 strength in the warm waters of the Gulf prior to its projected landfall on the central Texas coastline.
Credit: NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.